CRM & sales process
How to Run a BDC for Multiple Dealerships
How to run a BDC for multiple dealerships: lead routing, coverage hours across time zones, store handoffs, scripts and shared measures.
Quick answer
To run a BDC for multiple dealerships, write the routing rules first: which store owns each lead, who answers when, and how an appointment is handed to the selling store. Then set coverage hours, one script frame, a written handoff and the same measures for every rooftop.
The short answer
You run a BDC for multiple dealerships by deciding four things in writing before anyone answers a lead: how each lead is routed to a store, who covers which hours, how an appointment is handed to the store that will sell, and which measures every store is held to. The software and the headcount follow from those rules, not the other way round.
Most advice on this topic is a forum thread or a vendor blog. The threads are honest but anecdotal, and the vendor pages describe the product rather than the operation. This guide is the operating checklist, and it works whichever CRM you use. If you are still choosing between a central team and store desks, start with our CRM buyer's guide for multi-location dealer groups, which covers that decision. This page assumes you have made it.
Set the routing rules first
Routing rules say which store, and which person, gets each lead and each call, and what happens when that person does not respond. Write them as a table a new hire can follow.
| Situation | Rule to write down | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Lead names a specific unit | Route to the store that holds the unit | The customer asked about that bike, so that store has the answer |
| Lead names no unit | Nearest store by the customer's ZIP code, or the brand the customer asked for | Prevents leads piling up at the store with the best web traffic |
| Customer already has a record | Route to the current owner of that record | Stops two stores working the same person |
| Unit is at a sister store | The BDC agent books the visit at the sister store and logs it | The customer drives to where the unit is, not to where the lead landed |
| Owner does not respond in your set window | Escalate to the BDC lead, then the store manager | A lead should never sit because one person is out |
| Customer shops two stores | One store owns the customer; the other is credited by a written split | Removes the argument at month end |
The credit split is the rule groups skip most often, and it causes the most friction. Decide it before the first transferred lead, not after.
Choose coverage hours that match when customers write
Coverage hours should follow when leads and calls actually arrive, not when the stores open. Pull a week of lead timestamps from your CRM, count them by hour in each store's local time, and staff to that curve.
Two points are easy to miss in a group:
- Time zones. If your stores span more than one, a central team calls and texts customers in several local times. The FCC's rule on telephone solicitation says no one may initiate one to a residential subscriber "before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. (local time at the called party's location)" (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1)). Whether that applies to a given text or call depends on the kind of message and your attorney's view, so build the hour check into your process using the customer's local time. This is general information, not legal advice.
- Overflow and after-hours. Many groups run stores' own staff in working hours, with the central team covering evenings, weekends, busy Saturdays and overflow. Whatever the split, make the switch automatic by time or by queue length, so no lead waits for a manager to notice.
Pick a leader and keep the stores in the loop
A central BDC fails more often on perception than on process. In a 2021 DealerRefresh thread, one manager who ran a centralized BDC for three rooftops said the other stores "accused us, constantly, of not working their leads properly" because the team sat in one store, and recommended a neutral location. Another, who ran a central operation for about half of 50 stores, said it only makes sense if you pay well enough to keep staff, have agents spend a day or two a month at the stores they serve, and give them good tools and training. These are two operators' opinions from one thread, not a study, but they match what group managers tell us: the agents need to know the stores' inventory and people.
Practical steps that follow from this:
- Name one BDC lead who is accountable to the group, not to a single store.
- Give each store a named contact the BDC can reach during hours, and agree how fast that contact answers.
- Schedule agent visits or video walk-throughs of each store's showroom and inventory.
- Share a weekly summary by store: leads received, appointments set, appointments shown, and what the BDC could not solve.
Hand the customer to the store without losing the story
A handoff is complete when the selling store knows everything the BDC learned, without asking the customer again. Use the same fields for every appointment.
The handoff note
Every booked appointment carries:
- What the customer wants, in their words: the unit, the budget if they gave one, the trade, the timing.
- What the BDC already told them, including any price or availability promised.
- The date, time and store, and who the customer will ask for.
- Anything that could go wrong: a credit question, a trade with a payoff, a customer travelling a long way.
The store's first act on a shown or no-show appointment is to update the record. A BDC cannot coach what the store does not log.
Use one script frame, not forty scripts
A group needs one call and message frame that every agent uses, with a store-specific line for inventory, hours and people. The frame:
- Greet by store name and the customer's reason for writing.
- Answer the question they asked before asking your own.
- Confirm availability of the unit, with the store and the person who will meet them.
- Offer two appointment times.
- Confirm by text and email, with the address and the name to ask for.
Keep the script short enough to sound human. One of the forum posters above renamed his team the "Customer Care Centre" because the old name made agents feel like the product, a small reminder that tone is part of the operating model.
Measure every store the same way
Measure the same things at every rooftop, so the group can see where a lead is lost. A short list beats a long dashboard.
| Measure | How to count it | What a gap tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first response | From lead submitted to first real human touch | The BDC is understaffed in some hours |
| Contact rate | Leads that reach a live two-way conversation | Bad contact data or weak first messages |
| Appointment rate | Appointments set per lead worked | The script or the offer needs work |
| Show rate | Appointments that arrive at the store | Poor confirmation or a long drive |
| Store follow-through | Shown appointments with an updated record and disposition | The store, not the BDC, is dropping the lead |
Call recordings help here. PSX records and tags every inbound call, and every outbound call where state law permits, and managers can review them in a dashboard. Reviewing calls from the same few agents across stores shows whether a problem is the script or one person.
Where PSX Ascend fits
Our multi-location BDC software is built around the routing and handoff problems above. The page describes multi-store lead assignment, which routes each opportunity "to the right rooftop, team, and owner without losing the original customer context", and connected call coverage across locations. Authorized teams can assign and reassign opportunities across stores while keeping the customer context and a visible next action, and group leaders get a central view to compare activity, follow-up, appointments and calendars by rooftop.
It sits inside the AI-powered powersports CRM, so the BDC and the stores work from one customer record.
On follow-up, associates work each new lead with quick touches, and notes and an accurate disposition are required when a sale does not happen. Managers are prompted to review stalled deals. Then ALMA, the Automated Lead Management Assistant, takes over repetitive re-engagement and brings the customer back to a live conversation with a person. ALMA makes no AI voice calls.
For your demo, bring your own routing table and handoff note from this page and ask any vendor, including us, to show each one working with your store list.
You can also see the same multi-location BDC software on our sister site, PSXDigital's multi-location BDC software page.
Sources
- Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 47 CFR 64.1200 (paragraph (c)(1), calling hours, read 1 November 2026)
- DealerRefresh forum, centralized BDC across multiple rooftops thread (posts of 22 and 30 December 2021, read 1 November 2026; operator opinions, not a study)
- PSX Ascend, multi-location BDC software and AI-powered powersports CRM (product pages)